1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an in-vehicle hands-free phone system and to a tone sending-out method.
2. Description of the Related Art
An in-vehicle hands-free phone system that is realized by cooperation between an in-vehicle device and a cellular phone that a user brings into the vehicle is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2008-098981 (JP-A-2008-098981). In such an in-vehicle hands-free phone system, a user can make a call from inside the vehicle by operating an operation key portion of the in-vehicle device to connect to a phone of a communication partner or party and talk with the party via the user's cellular phone.
In some cases, after a user connects to a desired party by inputting, for example, the party's phone number, via the user's cellular phone, the user does a desired transaction by inputting a credit card number, a secret number, etc. that is requested by the party at the other end of the connection. Such a number (number sequence) is cumbersome to input for every transaction. Therefore, as for a party that requests the input of a fixed number sequence, it is a common practice to store in a telephone book of the cellular phone a number sequence that is made up of, for example, the party's phone number, the user's credit card number and the user's secrete number. This is convenient since a desired number sequence can be retrieved from the phone book, and can be sent out in the form of tones to the cellular phone. In this case, the user usually inserts a predetermined symbol or code, such as P, T, W, etc. in a number sequence to be stored in the telephone book, for example, between a phone number and a credit card number in the number sequence so that the credit card number is not sent out in the form of tones immediately after the tone sending-out of the phone number. Generally, a plurality of predetermined codes are prepared beforehand by cellular phone service providers. For example, in a certain cellular phone service provider, the meaning of “P” is, for example, to wait for an operation performed by the user and then send out a number sequence part up to the next predetermined code (if there is no next predetermined code, the number sequence part up to the end is sent out. This also applies to the description below.) in the form of tones, and the meaning of “T” is, for example, to wait for 2 seconds and then send out a number sequence part up to the next code in the form of tones. Therefore, the user needs to understand the meanings of these codes according to the cellular phone service provider of a cellular phone that the user owns, in order to store number sequences that include predetermined codes into a telephone book of the cellular phone.
However, specific codes, such as P and the like, although used by a plurality of cellular phone service providers, are handled differently among the cellular phone service providers. Besides, specific codes, such as “T” and the like, are handled differently among cellular phone service providers in such a manner that a specific code, such as “T” or the like, can be used only with a specific cellular phone operator. Therefore, in an in-vehicle hands-free phone system, there is a possibility that the tone sending-out that a user intends may not be realized if the in-vehicle device causes a cellular phone to carry out the tone sending-out without grasping the cellular phone service provider of the cellular phone.